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He kept rejecting me,
He kept abandoning me,
He kept belittling me like I was nothing,
He kept being inconsiderate to my feelings,
He kept putting everything else first,
He kept thinking about himself, making everything about himself.

And I kept loving him,
I kept protecting him,
I kept being there by his side no matter what,
I kept it all inside, patiently,
I kept my fears away from him,
I kept enduring every pain and I kept calling it love.

My anxiety sets in when December arrives. My mind starts running wild, it’s hardly a week for my birthday. Do I buy myself a new outfit? Should I plan my own birthday party? What if everybody cancels at the last minute and I am all alone. I don’t want to deal with that sort of rejection on my birthday. Birthday? Why is this day supposed to be so important? Okay I understand I was born on this day and I got to witness the miracle of life, blah, blah, blah, but shouldn’t it be more special for my parents as well? Wow! How inconsiderate I can be sometimes. Why do I keep thinking things like that? I should be more rational, that’s what my therapist told me. So if I put it in a rational statement it would be something like this… I don’t know what it should be… God! I hate this day because:

1. Extroverts, social media, pop culture has set the standard too high for birthdays. Phone blowing up at midnight, 100s of people wishing you and buying you gifts, surprise birthday parties, club nights and what not. It’s all too much for an introvert like me.

2. My expectations reach the sky on that day. It’s like- Oh! you got me a gift! What is it? It’s a new smartphone? iPhone? Gold biscuit? Did you just say Cadbury Dairy milk silk? Are you kidding me!

3. I know my closed ones very well and I always end up figuring out their surprises and they are not really surprising for me but I have to act surprised because I don’t want them to feel bad. Did you get it?

4. I don’t have much friends/squad to go partying out.

5. What is this immense pressure of enjoying each and every minute of my birthday! Oh my god! Damn you social media!

6. It’s a lot of attention for a person like me who wants to chill in a corner, being all invisible and mind her own business.

7. I have no idea how to act. It’s all very awkward for me. Something of this sort- If I missed a call should I call her back or let her call me back? This person forgot my birthday, obviously, he doesn’t care about me! Duh!

8. Gifts! I love gifts! Only the ones I buy myself. Lol.

9. One more year has gone. I’m closer to my death and now there are younger guys I can’t go out with!

10. My shitty biological clock is ticking off! The number of questions and concerns from society about me getting married and having kids just doubled up! A very congratulations to me!

Hopefully, some birthday, either I will grow out of this feeling or maybe this list will!

As you might already know that I’m pretty good with photo editors, may be better than taking pictures. Editing a picture is what makes it or breaks it.

So, let me showcase you 8 types of edits I normally use.

1. #nofilter Edit

Photo editors used: none!

This is not as easy it seems to be. Your exposure, angles, composition, white balance, focus, etc. everything should be perfect as you are not going to touch it up. It’s not impossible to achieve it but not simple either unless you’re a pro, like me. Just kidding. I had to click 23 pictures to get a perfect shot.

This is the best option when you’re too lazy to edit pictures and want to upload it ASAP.

3. The Classic VSCO Edit

Photo editor used: obviously VSCO! duh!

This is one of the most popular edits on Instagram. Almost everybody uses this. You can achieve this simply by selecting a filter and then adjusting its feature according to your choice. Don’t forget to increase the ‘Fade’ option as much as you like because that’s what this edit is all about.

4. The Brandon Woelfel effect:

Photo editors used: VSCO, PicsArt

If you don’t know who Brandon Woelfelisthen you need to check his portraits on Instagram RIGHT.NOW. This edit is based on his trademark color scheme and bokeh effect. (I tried my best to make it look so) It will take a whole new blog post to explain in detail how to achieve this look. Stay tuned for that. 😉

5. HD Edit:

Photo editor used: Snapseed

Just the basic Snapseed features like HDR scape, Vignette, Tonal Contrast and Tune Image a little bit and bingo! It’s the most HD picture you’ll get.

6. Soft Goth edit:

Photo editor used: Snapseed

Use the same HD edit features and then darken out the whole background to highlight your subject in the picture. You can also use Glamour Glow to soften the picture a little bit.

7. Grainy Film Edit

Photo editor used: Snapseed

This is my go-to approach whenever the picture is of low quality or clicked in low-light. The Grainy option in Snapseed has many filters to choose from. It gives this nice filmy vintage kind of look that I like.

8. The Vintage Edit

Photo editor used: Snapseed

This is my signature style that everybody, including me, loves on Instagram. I love how it looks like old photographs and somewhat nostalgic. Again, another blog post tutorial to show you how it’s done.

Finally, you can use each and every edit from above, add different typographies, alter backgrounds, build on tons of filters and create your own style. And you don’t even need to learn Photoshop, its all at your fingertips. Good luck!

I get the same set of questions almost every day on Instagram. So, please, go through it once before we can have an actual conversation.

1. Why you’re not an artist?
People need to understand that a person can be good at 2-3 things at a time. I am equally good at my job as I am at drawing. Unlike many other people in IT industry, I love programming. And fortunately, I get paid well for doing the thing that I love.

2. Why you’re single?
Because I have deeply rooted emotional issues and a debilitating fear of abandonment which fucks up every decision I make and then I self-destruct my life. Hopefully, that answers your question. 🙂

3. Are you a professional photographer?
Nope, photography is a hobby for me. I’m neither confident and nor do I have time, currently, to be a professional. Maybe in future.

4. Where are you from?
India, Mumbai. Where exactly in Mumbai? Please just don’t. I hate uninvited guests.

5. You’re an artist/photographer? Can you please draw/shoot me?
For money? Absolutely. For free? Absolutely not.

6. How old are you?
So that you can decide whether to hit on me or not? I look like I’m 16, that should be enough information for you.

7. When are you getting married?
The exact moment when every planet in the universe lines up. It seems to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to get married.

8. Can I get your number? We can talk on Whatsapp/ Can I add you on Fb/Linkedin/Twitter/Instagram.
Okay, then what? Come to my home or workplace, follow me on streets, watch me eat and breathe? This is how you start being a creepy stalker, so just don’t.

9. What do you do? What exactly being a UI Developer means?
All the pretty websites you see on the internet are developed by UI developers. I am a UI developer.

11. Are you free on weekends?
Please don’t pressurize me with questions like these. If you know me anything at all then you’ll be aware that I have planned at least 3 months of weekends from today.

12. Wassup?
“Nothing much”. If I’m stuck somewhere and you’re my last hope with my battery at 1% and you text me “wassup?”, my answer is still going to be “nothing much”. Let’s not waste both of our time.

A few years back I met this certain guy and eventually, we became friends. We started hanging out and became best of friends in no time. It was a feeling I never knew existed as you know I am completely unable to sustain any kind of relationship with men in my life. Being friends with a guy felt like a huge accomplishment to me.

My new best friend always seemed a bit confused and lost in his life. He didn’t know what he liked, what he didn’t like, what he wanted to do with his life, what are his hobbies, what his career path should be, and something, as basic as what kind of music he prefers. With time, I started to relate to him as I was in his place at some point. I started dreaming this perfect picture where I will save him, fix him, I will be his hero and he will worship me forever and ever. *Spoiler alert* nothing of this sort happened, obviously, this is real life and not some hopeless romantic comedy.

It all started with helping him with picking out his outfits. And in no time he was dressing up like me, talking similar to me, he started drawing and painting, learning programming and photography. He also started his own Instagram photography account, with little excerpts as captions just like me. At first, I was enjoying all the attention and it felt as if we are twinning but little did I know that he, in fact, was cloning.

Every little thing I did he’d copy me and make it his own thing. It went as far as plagiarising my work. I had begun to feel like I was being robbed of my creativity, uniqueness, my personality, and my identity. I had put in almost half a decade to be who I am and where I am right now, and he took it all from me in only a few months.

As he was dealing with his own identity crisis I had started to feel like an impostor in my own life. I cut my hair short and stopped straightening my hair. I gave up drawing and taking pictures. I gained weight, lost my confidence at work; I had no idea what I was doing. This was not me. I have never been that kind of a person who doesn’t know what to do. It came to the point where I couldn’t take a glance at myself in the mirror.

It took me several months to come to a conclusion that if I want to save myself I need to cut him off completely. Anyway, I am glad we are not friends anymore. Now, whenever I see anyone twinning with me, I run the hell away from them. I wouldn’t risk my identity for anything or anyone. So shouldn’t you!.

#metoo. There, I said it on social media. Nothing about my life changed, it still sucks by the way. I don’t know why, but I thought things will change for me. People will give me a bit more respect, my voice will be heard, the men who did this to us will be punished, and guys on the street won’t look at me the way they do. Guess what? Not a damn thing changed in my life. People still think I’m stupid because I’m a woman, nobody considers my opinion, those guys who did this to us still live their life like it was all nothing, and the guys on street still look at me the way they always had.

The only thing that’s going to change in my life is- people will comment on my post that how brave I am for sharing this, they will sympathize with me and after a day or two they’ll forget about it. But I won’t. This forever is going to be a part of me, that’s how every girl in this world comes of age.

I wrote a whole blog post about my experience like every other woman has been on social media and I deleted it. I, truly, understand how hard it is to open up about our worst experiences of our lives on social media, but, on the other hand, what we are doing here is making sexual assault such a norm that people, everywhere, have started taking it very lightly. And I believe, that’s the worst part of it all.

So, ladies and men, just don’t say #metoo. Probably, the next time you see a fellow human being, assaulted or in pain, listen, try to help, and do not blame them. And I think that’s what the campaign should be about- #metoo helped a person who was assaulted. Maybe this campaign will make a difference it is intended to.